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"The only books you ever really need to read...it's like a library
in your pocket - dip into it and feel smugly well informed"

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"...a fascinating guide to some of the most significant books ever
published."

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22 Reviews

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74 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reader's Treasure Chest, 31 Aug 2006

By	Phillip Edwards "PJE" (Nottingham) - See all my reviews

As a biblioholic this was guaranteed to have me slavering with anticipation: a book about the 1001 best(?) books ever, with each one receiving a eulogy of around 300 words. It's quite a hefty tome: a bookshelf-bending 2kg in fact, nearly half of which must be due to all the photographs. Someone even managed to find a snap of JD Salinger - extra kudos for that.

Inevitably everyone will quibble about the selection, so why should I be any different? The omission of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is an unforgivable oversight. Other surprise absentees include Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess and anyone called Bradbury (there is no sign of The History Man, or Fahrenheit 451). And it's probably best not to mention Watership Down or Terry Pratchett - I don't envy the publishers having to deal with all those irate fans.

Maybe they were collateral damage in an editorial decision to avoid "children's" books - something which enabled them to sidestep Harry Potter, but also resulted in there being no place for Louis Sachar's Holes, or anything by Philip Pullman, Malorie Blackman or even Roald Dahl. (Is there a 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up in the pipeline I wonder? If so, can I be a compiler please?)

Such omissions are made harder to understand by the presence of quite a few insubstantial novels from recent years, and some of the choices make no sense at all. For example: two books by Paulo Coelho have been included, neither of which is The Alchemist; while BS Johnson is represented by three books, none of which is his legendary book-in-a-box (The Unfortunates). There is also a page where Youth by JM Coetzee sits next to Dead Air by Iain Banks, despite much stronger novels by both authors being absent. (I would have certainly included Coetzee's Age of Iron.)

The compiler also shows a treacherous predilection for the cinema: too many books seem to have been chosen because they spawned classic films. The Graduate and The Postman Always Rings Twice spring to mind. So The Third Man is here, but not Our Man In Havana; while Arthur C. Clarke is represented by the novelisation of 2001: A Space Odyssey rather than Childhood's End (or Rendezvous With Rama, or The Fountains of Paradise). Cassell also publish 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, but somehow I doubt the compiler of that book has chosen any mediocre films of great novels.

One more minor quibble: the title index at the front and the author index at the back are both riddled with errors and omissions, which seems sloppy. Despite all that it is a wonderful compendium to dip into over and over again - but beware: you will end up with lots more of books to add to your must-read list.

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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1 Book You Must Read Before You Die, 14 Mar 2006

By	"tarareadsbooks" - See all my reviews

Even if you're not counting on dying any time soon, you should get reading immediately if you hope to get through every book included in this bibliophile's companion. Luckily though, you don't have to actually read all those classic and influential novels, because this superb reference book provides enough information in itself to give the reader an excellent literary overview. With this single volume, you can avoid feeling that you've read so much that dying might be a merciful release from all that goddamned literature; instead, each pleasantly brief entry provides enough to grasp the essence of the book in question, and allows the reader to decide if they want to read the novel itself. The little fact boxes reveal some interesting kernals of trivia too - for example, Anne Rice was christened Howard. And OK, there are a few mistakes in the index, but frankly that does little to mar an excellent, fascinating and useful book.

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57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 19 and a quarter years, and then some, 21 May 2006

By	P. Bryant (Nottingham, England) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This is a splendid and much needed guide - the beautiful illustrations are worth the price. It should be stacked on your shelf next to "The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction" and "The salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors" which are also recommended and which take completely different approaches. "1001 Books" presents you with The Really Great Stuff . Which is where the fun starts - this is a book all readers will want to argue passionately with. Almost at the same time as I'm finding authors I'd never heard of and making "must buy" lists, I'm shouting at the editors - "what's this? You've got three in here by Douglas Adams, and NONE by Roddy Doyle? What's all that about??" I mean, Douglas Adams is good for one, but not three... And if Douglas Adams, then Garrison Keillor...
Each book gets about 300 words which editor Peter Boxall describes like this : "What each entry does is to respond, with the cramped urgency of a deathbed confession, to what makes each novel compelling, to what it is about each novel that makes one absolutely need to read it." 1001 books - it's a lot. If you had the time and money to read every one at a rate of one per week, you'd need 19 and a quarter years, so you better get going. But seriously, you aren't going to do that. The pre-1700 section, in particular, is strictly for students of literature - I stick my neck out and say that very few will be reading "Euphues : The Anatomy of Wit" by John Lyly or "Aithiopika" by Heliodorus for fun. And then the dogged reader will be coming up against the rarely-scaled Everests of literature such as Dorothy Richardson's "Pilgrimage" (13 vols, thousands of pages) or Proust (likewise) or "Infinite Jest" (one volume, 1100 pages). Each of which are going to take you 6 months solid.
Odd things abound in this mighty guide. "Like Life" by Lorrie Moore is included - a collection of short stories, not a novel. So okay - why no Raymond Carver, America's greatest short story writer? And sometimes it's hard to see that the reviewer even likes the book in question - "The Secret History" is described as "quality trash for highbrows"! Or take this: "As with his other writing `The Book of Laughter and Forgetting' raises questions about the representation of female characters, and invites accusations of latent misogyny. These are valid objections that may engender fruitful considerations of this novel as a historical document as much as a work of experimental fiction." Well, that's hardly an enthusiastic endorsement. (And while on the subject of misogyny, I'm sad to see the loathsome `American Psycho' in here - the reviewer (and editor) has fallen for the old "it's ironic, it's not actually a book that revels in descriptions of butchering women" line. It may be ironic, but I'm sorry to say that Mr Ellis does, in fact, revel in vile descriptions of butchering women. So it is - extremely - misogynistic.)
Some authors are wildly over-represented, such as J M Coatzee, Ian McEwan and Paul Auster, all of which have more titles in here than Henry James. It's interesting to check if the Booker Prizewinners are included - 20 are out of 37 and there are some strange omissions - no room for "Vernon God Little" or "The True History of the Kelly Gang", "Sacred Hunger" (nothing at all by Barry Unsworth in fact - what's wrong with him?), "The Famished Road" or "Hotel du Lac".
So you can see this is a guide with enough in it to annoy everyone - tremendous fun for everyone, but particularly those who have just been sentenced to a long stretch of solitary confinement.

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Published 3 months ago by Sterile

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Published 3 months ago by HH

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It is said that the Bishop of Wakefield, on reading Hardy's Jude the Obscure, was so enraged by it that he threw it on the fire. Read more

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4.0 out of 5 stars A great book about great books!
What more could you want in a reading guide? The 1001 books are not suggested to be the best ever, but rather a diverse selection of international novels which deserve to be read... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Nat

4.0 out of 5 stars Revised 2008 edition
This second "international" edition has been revised to include a far wider range of authors, including many prize winners (Nobel - Isaac Bashevis Singer, SY Agnon, Orhan Pamuk,... Read more

Published 12 months ago by James

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun Argument Starter for Fiction Lovers
The first thing to understand about this massive brick of a book is that the title is meant to catch one's attention and that like the contents, it must be taken with a very large... Read more

Published 13 months ago by A. Ross

4.0 out of 5 stars There are some odd omissions in this compilation
The book lists several titles by Saul Bellow, but none by that marvellous (and Nobel prize-winning) writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. There is nothing by William Boyd. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Caroline Richmond

4.0 out of 5 stars Caution: unputdownable
Any book that encourages reading has got to be a good thing. Whilst generally not a fan of titles that try tell me how to spend my time before I croak - this actually covers a... Read more

Published 24 months ago by Jl Adcock

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